Home Price Levels Hit All-Time Highs in Nine States, CoreLogic Says

New data from CoreLogic shows that over half of America’s states and the District of Columbia are now around or within 10 percent of their pre-recession peak levels in terms of home prices. Nine states actually have home prices reaching all-time record levels and beating out the peak values attained in the run-up to the global economic crisis.

CoreLogic’s Home Price Index for the month of October 2014 shows that home prices in the United States, with distressed sales included, were 6.1 percent higher year-over-year that month. That made October the 32nd straight month in which the national HPI with distressed sales had increased on a yearly basis. Compared to September’s statistics, October’s HPI was 0.5 percent higher. October’s increase also brought the HPI within 12.4 percent below its peak reading reached in April 2006.

To wit, nine states – Colorado, Louisiana, Nebraska, New York, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming – reached record highs and beat out their 2005-2007 peak levels, while 27 other states and Washington D.C. are close to what CoreLogic considers as “full recovery.” These states are now within 10 percent of the record levels attained in the years leading up to the global economic recession and U.S. housing crisis.

Michigan experienced the biggest year-over-year improvement in home prices including distressed sales, with an increase of 10.5 percent. Completing the top five in this metric were South Dakota (+10.4 percent), Montana (+9.1 percent), Texas (+8.7 percent), and Colorado (+8.6 percent).

Without distressed sales taken into account, home prices were up by 5.6 percent in October 2014 as compared to the previous October’s figures, and rose by 0.6 percent month-over-month. For this particular metric, all 50 states and the District of Columbia, save for Mississippi (-1.2 percent), had experienced improvements on a year-over-year basis.

Among individual states, South Dakota (+10.4 percent) had the biggest price appreciation without distressed sales. The top five also included Massachusetts (+9.7 percent), Maine (+8.4 percent), Texas (+8.1 percent), and Michigan (+8.0 percent).

Overall, home price growth continued to decelerate in October, as price appreciation was at about half of its growth in the spring of 2014. “However, there are still pockets of strength, especially in several Texas markets, as well as Seattle, Denver and other markets with strong economic fundamentals,” said CoreLogic deputy chief economist Sam Khater.

For the rest of the year’s numbers, Khater added that home prices may improve by 0.2 percent month-over-month, and 5.1 percent year-over-year in November, with distressed sales taken into account. Without distressed sales, the monthly improvement may be the same at 0.2 percent, while year-over-year appreciation is forecasted to be 4.7 percent.

In a statement, CoreLogic president and CEO Anand Nallathambi said that the broader U.S. housing market is continuing its steady recovery, driven by many of the same factors that have pushed statistical and fundamental improvement in previous months. “The gradual recovery of the housing market continues to be propelled by improving employment, more buyer and seller confidence, continued low rates and, in certain parts of the country, investor demand. The continued actual and projected rise in home prices confirms that fact,” he said. “Based on our projections, home prices in over half the country will have reached or surpassed levels last seen at the height of the housing bubble sometime in mid-2015.”